Westering
Contemporary group show
Beginning August 3 the Gerald Peters Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico, will present Westering, a new group exhibition that will focus on contemporary Western art.
Artists in the exhibition include Arturo Chavez, Aaron Morgan Brown, Michael Cassidy, Steve Kestrel and Theodore Waddell, who will be signing copies of his book, My Montana, Painting and Sculpture, 1959-2016, during the August 24 reception that runs from 5 to 7 p.m.
Works in the show include Waddell’s abstracted snow and cattle scenes, including Rapelje #3 and Red Willow Angus #14, both of which feature dabs of black paint against fields of white. The work is painted loosely and with a raw energy in every brushstroke, but the shapes of the land and the cattle remain powerful forms with this high level of abstraction.
Landscape painter Chavez will be showing two works, Spider and the diptych Summer Rain. For Spider, which shows a top-down view of a rocky spire rising out of the snow-covered desert floor in Canyon de Chelly, Chavez paints a familiar subject.
“Spider Rock has been a 25-year friend to me and has inspired numerous paintings of this beautiful dual pinnacle formation. Spider Rock stands with awesome dignity and beauty, towering 800 feet high over Arizona’s colorful Canyon de Chelly National Monument. The formation began 230 million years ago and with time the Chinle Wash has eroded the canyon floor to reveal this spectacular red sandstone monolith,” he says. “Visiting Spider many times over the years in different seasons, I have had the opportunity to paint, study and contemplate the magical history of this beautiful and inspiring tower. As a pilot, I am at home with the ‘birds-eye view’ and have continually favored aerial paintings of Spider Rock. In the early days of my career, I did not have the opportunity to actually fly over and take photos of the formation, so in this painting titled Spider—my first attempt
at painting Spider from the air—i had to depict it from my imagination using geometric projection to arrive at how I imagined the raven would see and experience it. In recent years I have had the opportunity to fly numerous flights over Spider Rock and take photos from an unmanned drone, which has augmented my fascination and love affair with Spider Rock.”
Kestrel will be showing his bronze Little Bull, which first appeared at the Prix de West in 2016. “Buffalo/bison…during my first year of college in New Mexico, I worked weekends for a rancher who crossbred bison with cattle,” the sculptor says. “One vivid memory was of a bison bull that gored and broke the jaw of a massive brahma bull during a short battle. His incredible power and complete dominance bear witness that the ‘bison tribe’ is still the epitome of strength and survival… magnificent herbivores…little Bull is homage to the linage of ‘Old Bulls.’”
The exhibition continues through September 28 in Santa Fe.